Fans of the NFL have heard Cris Collinsworth’s voice on either NBC or FOX at some point on Sundays in their lives. He is more known for being an analyst than doing play-by-play, but it was an idea that NBC thought of trying when they got the rights to football back.
On the latest episode of the Just Getting Started with Rich Eisen podcast, Collinsworth talked about his broadcasting journey and an idea NBC had that was similar to what Peyton and Eli Manning are doing now at ESPN.
“There was a time when they wanted John Madden to do the games and I’m in the studio and they always sort of had this dream of two analysts doing the games. I would sort of do the play-by-play and John would be the caller, but it would be much more of a conversation about football than a traditional broadcast. Like Peyton and Eli sort of.”
“They fly a jumbo jet 747 across the country. They take the whole NBC Sports team to John Madden’s studios. We go in to do this game. I’m doing the play-by-play. I’m sort of like how hard can it be? I started doing some practice games before that. They put a microphone on me and Merril Hoge came and they would record them and we would call the games.”
However, when Collinsworth tried to do play-by-play, he quickly learned that he could not call the game the same way he does as an analyst.
“I couldn’t undo what I had learned to do my whole life. When I broadcast the game, I don’t watch the football. A lot of times, I lose where it is. I think Al’s job is to tell you what’s happening to the football and my job is to tell you something you didn’t see. When I’m trying to do play-by-play, now I’ve got to watch the football. I didn’t really know just getting on-the-air, that’s a lot harder than you think it is.”
As the story goes on, Dick Ebersol tells Collinsworth if he wants the job, he can have it. However, Ebersol also mentioned that he had the chance to get Al Michaels and now the two are partners on the NBC broadcast years later.
According to Collinsworth, Ebersol has been an important figure in his life. Collinsworth told Eisen that at one point, he could have stayed at FOX or gone to CBS at the time. He was going to go to CBS, but something Ebersol said made him change his mind:
“He said ‘you are very good at football and breaking it down and serious and you’re edgy. They are going to teach you how to have fun with broadcasting. They are going to teach you that broadcasting is more than just the game. It’s a story. It’s a sense of humor. It’s a welcome into my home.’ I thought about it a long time and I was definitely going to be the fourth wheel on that show, but I was happy that I did.”
